Perhaps it will pan out, but it seems more like a private intellectual-property play than a real effort. It will likely slow progress by wrapping up informatio

Perhaps it will pan out, but it seems more like a private intellectual-property play than a real effort. It will likely slow progress by wrapping up information and access. Methodologically, no one solves a hugely complex system by looking at the whole thing. We've made tremendous progress when investigators focus on one interaction and do the bench work to isolate and prove features of it. It's true that researchers need interaction data banks, e.g., to identify all the components in a metabolic cycle, to see what might be affected when part of that is amplified or suppressed. Epidemiology is notoriously unhelpful in immune research because there are not enough numbers/powers to overcome individual variability. Researchers largely work on models that operate immediately. There are no in-vitro models for immune learning, and few even for the relevant gene regulation. People have tried and failed to build a control-system model for even the simplest interactions of a single cell. Synthetic biology companies have burned billions with few results. I wouldn't expect someone with 40 years in HIV research to have the technical or leadership skills to pivot to the immune system.